I understand why people need holidays - they're milestones for recollection and contemplation and though Christ was not born on 25th December, Christmas has helped many Christians cast their mind back to the day He was conceived by Mary.
I've returned from missions and quite honestly, its been rather dissatisfying. Its one of those experiences whereby one returns knowing that something is amiss and much is happening beneath what one clearly sees. Undercurrents of these sort are the eventual cause for tectonic shifts, and its in the hands of God now. If only we could see clearer... if only we had the hearts to pry at His desires... why is it that mankind hobble at the comfort of rubbish heaps when they can be present at the banquet table of God Himself?
Today I took much time off, meditating on the miracle of the incarnation, that God became man in a sudden and brilliant night. The prayers of generations past, the hopes, fears, joys, sorrows of the ages met in that single night when the creator took on the form of a child... Goodwill to all mankind from a tender King who had never forgotten His people.
After this quiet afternoon with God, i don't think i can see babies in the same way again. God is here with us! Immanuel... How history must have choked and startled, when God entered the annuals of humankind as human to rescue mankind from its sins. How in mortality we are allevated to see the eternal through the eyes of Christ...
Its late, very late now as i type, but i cannot get over this brilliant truth... the child that Mary delivered has now delivered us... the great I AM, is with us... with us...
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Inflation and arcadia
I begin each morning flipping through the papers religiously and was discomforted by the report of inflationary pressures on consumer products. Admittedly the price increases have not yet materialised since suppliers have absorbed the increased cost, but its just a matter of time. Approximately a 7% rise - that's a hefty surge. Its a big concern for those who survive on so little in a country that has so much, and thus it should bother us.
I do not think the government can reduce costs of consumer products artificially in any way but it has to re look the fundamentals of its welfare policies. The rhetoric of welfare and laziness mashed together, is sometimes as simplistic as drawing a stick figure and calling it a human being. It will not stick all the time.
Other than that, I've been thinking of Oxford lately. Its been a year and a half since I've walked the cobbled stoned pathways, did my morning dashes to Ben's and walked the meadows in the night. The imposing spires, eccentric dons and dinners in gowns all seemed like a gloomy fairy tale, that taught the young child that i was, a good deal of intellectual suppleness and reserve. Mornings at Cornmarket with performers lining the street and afternoons at the bookshops or libraries with a quiet dinner thereafter and that good book, with my handy cup of Hot choc by the heater.
Yes, there were calmer days and hectic ones, though mostly time for self absorption and in the 3rd year, a great deal of meditation. There were mistakes and laughter, regrets and exuberance and its rather odd that I grew to enjoy aloneness a jolly great deal. Human Beings (including myself), I had come to realise were better left to God. I was conjuring within my simple mind a plan to retire somewhere in Oxford shire, with a hut in the meadows, preferably near C.S Lewis home, so that I could perhaps gain some insight into the maestro's world. Maybe write a book or two, drink more tea and read theology for life. There will be 2-3 dogs skittering around, waking me up at 630am sharp every morning by pulling my blankets away and hopefully, serve me a hot cup of chocolate with pancakes.
In that world, i thought, i wouldn't have the trouble of having a wife since its much to tiring finding one, though i would have a few daughters and sons, all in love with reading, all loathing the extremist liberal nannying state rubbish. There will be story telling during Christmas around the fire place, of Moses and Jesus' birth, and lots of sport come spring and summer. Autumns for family walks and as the idyllic vision went, short holidays into Inverness. All that seemed so fine for a while, for returning to Singapore has been so incredibly consuming.
I'm afraid its the frantic pace I have gotten too used to that has transformed the Arcadia I had envisioned into a mournful silence. I have been irritable in the past two weeks, since I suspect my mind begins to question the reasons for continuing on this path without putting to thought what I would lose as the scenery behind fades into certain obscurity.
The past is fading into story telling and memory has become the walking stick for which I, the blind man use to wade back into the city i once trudged into effortlessly. All before me is a blur, all behind me a hazy reminder that if i should stretch my hand forth, it must be into the hands of God that I entrust my soul. My Arcadia is an illusory certainty, a dream forged upon a dream since it mocks even the dreamer. It tells me that i was not made for this world, but it refuses me its fulfillment in this small vastness of earth. It is my hope yet sorrow, my determination yet helplessness, a simple cry to God above to make haste in resuing me.
Like a child lost for words, as Tennyson wrote a hundred and fifty years ago, crying in the night with no language but a cry.
I do not think the government can reduce costs of consumer products artificially in any way but it has to re look the fundamentals of its welfare policies. The rhetoric of welfare and laziness mashed together, is sometimes as simplistic as drawing a stick figure and calling it a human being. It will not stick all the time.
Other than that, I've been thinking of Oxford lately. Its been a year and a half since I've walked the cobbled stoned pathways, did my morning dashes to Ben's and walked the meadows in the night. The imposing spires, eccentric dons and dinners in gowns all seemed like a gloomy fairy tale, that taught the young child that i was, a good deal of intellectual suppleness and reserve. Mornings at Cornmarket with performers lining the street and afternoons at the bookshops or libraries with a quiet dinner thereafter and that good book, with my handy cup of Hot choc by the heater.
Yes, there were calmer days and hectic ones, though mostly time for self absorption and in the 3rd year, a great deal of meditation. There were mistakes and laughter, regrets and exuberance and its rather odd that I grew to enjoy aloneness a jolly great deal. Human Beings (including myself), I had come to realise were better left to God. I was conjuring within my simple mind a plan to retire somewhere in Oxford shire, with a hut in the meadows, preferably near C.S Lewis home, so that I could perhaps gain some insight into the maestro's world. Maybe write a book or two, drink more tea and read theology for life. There will be 2-3 dogs skittering around, waking me up at 630am sharp every morning by pulling my blankets away and hopefully, serve me a hot cup of chocolate with pancakes.
In that world, i thought, i wouldn't have the trouble of having a wife since its much to tiring finding one, though i would have a few daughters and sons, all in love with reading, all loathing the extremist liberal nannying state rubbish. There will be story telling during Christmas around the fire place, of Moses and Jesus' birth, and lots of sport come spring and summer. Autumns for family walks and as the idyllic vision went, short holidays into Inverness. All that seemed so fine for a while, for returning to Singapore has been so incredibly consuming.
I'm afraid its the frantic pace I have gotten too used to that has transformed the Arcadia I had envisioned into a mournful silence. I have been irritable in the past two weeks, since I suspect my mind begins to question the reasons for continuing on this path without putting to thought what I would lose as the scenery behind fades into certain obscurity.
The past is fading into story telling and memory has become the walking stick for which I, the blind man use to wade back into the city i once trudged into effortlessly. All before me is a blur, all behind me a hazy reminder that if i should stretch my hand forth, it must be into the hands of God that I entrust my soul. My Arcadia is an illusory certainty, a dream forged upon a dream since it mocks even the dreamer. It tells me that i was not made for this world, but it refuses me its fulfillment in this small vastness of earth. It is my hope yet sorrow, my determination yet helplessness, a simple cry to God above to make haste in resuing me.
Like a child lost for words, as Tennyson wrote a hundred and fifty years ago, crying in the night with no language but a cry.
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